- From: phoenixl <phoenixl@sonic.net>
- Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 08:05:04 -0700
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Dutch Ambassadors for Accessible Websites: an advocacy experiment By Andrew Freeway (Andrew_Freeway@yahoo.com) Who better than disabled people themselves can convince companies to create better access to important Internet sites! Perhaps this Dutch experience can be repeated in other countries. WHY? The Dutch National Board for Accessibility appointed 4 ambassadors to assess important Dutch internet sites on their accessibility for all. The project was called No Barriers (Drempels Weg) and its main goal was to stimulate an accessible internet for everyone and to get more people with a disability making use of the internet. No Barriers also wanted to motivate website designers to make as many sites as possible completely accessible for everyone. WHO? Jacko van Dijk, Pascal Ursinus, Paul Erkens and Theo van Leur were appointed by state secretary Margot Vliegenthart as the No Barriers ambassadors. Each of them represents a group of disabled people to which they belong themselves. Their tasks: create a relationship with organizations that are responsible for important Dutch websites, to inform the state secretary about their efforts and to involve their group of disabled people in this process. All 4 have experience in using the internet, but on the issue of accessibility their ideas vary. All 4 have composed their own back-up group to support them in their activities. Through awareness and positive feedback they will try to improve the accessibility of internet sites. Of course all improvements are based on W3C standards. Jacko van Dijk represents people with a physical disability. He has a muscular disease. Therefore he can hardly uses his limbs and sits in a wheelchair. Pascal Ursinus represents people with a hearing disability. Due to a progressive hearing loss he is now more or less deaf but was able to develop oral language knowledge. Paul Erkens represents people with a bad or no vision. He is blind himself and has a kidney disorder. Internet changed his life completely, as he said. Theo van Leur is an intellectual challenged man and represents people with learning disabilities. Since he lives on his own, the internet became an important part of his life. WHAT? During the year 2001 their goal was to reach an agreement with at least 100 Dutch organizations to create or change their internet sites into barrier free sites. By March 2002 they achieved to have such an agreement with 127 important Dutch companies. This agreement is based on the most important aspects of a particular website that should be improved. An important incentive for the companies to reach the agreement was the fact that the ambassadors visited these companies personally. Each of them showed the personal applicability of the standards in a specific site. The ambassadors confronted CEO's and other decision makers with the virtual barriers they encountered while visiting their site. And based on the standards and their experience they were able to show a solution to this problem. In most cases such a visit worked very well, because the people involved were just not aware of the specific needs of disabled people and were therefore ignoring the needs of an important part of society. If not for moral or political correct reasons, a smart company also would like to reach people with disabilities for commercial reasons. Especially the e-commerce part of website could be very interesting for many disabled people. In order to have a real and lasting effect of the No Barriers agreements, it was also necessary to inform disabled people about the possibilities of internet. The 4 ambassadors used their own back-up group 'to spread the message' and got a high profile in magazines and sites of groups they were more or less representing. HOW? After checking carefully with the organizations of disabled people, 4 target groups were identified: people with a physical disability, with a visual disability, with a hearing disability and with a learning disability. Each group delivered an ambassador: someone with knowledge of the needs and demands of his peers and with hands-on experience with internet. After their appointment, all ambassadors created a feed-back group among their peers. This group was going to advise the ambassador on specific disability related issues, but was also a portal to all the other people with a similar disability so they could be stimulated to use the internet more frequently. The next step was making a list of sites of companies with a high profile. Especially e-commerce applications were covered, but also sites with an important informative function. All these sites were assessed by all 4 ambassadors. Appointments were made with the companies and the assessments were talked through. These ! visits had to result in signing a declaration to improve the assessed site in accordance with the advice given by the ambassadors. The whole project was supported by a project office. All administrative and secretarial service were given by this office as well as strategic and policy support. NEXT? This year, 2002, this successful method will be continued but no longer on a national level. Every 3 months another region will 'adopt' the No Barriers program by appointing its own ambassadors on a local level. They will visit local companies to assess their sites and reach an agreement on improving these sites as far as accessibility is concerned. The program will be supported by a lot of free publicity and is an excellent way to improve the awareness among companies as well as disabled people themselves. In the mean time, the national No Barriers program will monitor the compliance of the organizations who signed the 'declaration' and give support to the local initiatives. For more information on this program you can contact the Dutch National Board for Accessibility (Landelijk Bureau Toegankelijkheid) at their web sites www.drempelsweg.nl or www.lbt.nl or by email at info@lbt.nl.
Received on Tuesday, 9 July 2002 11:05:06 UTC